Psalm 22:22-30
22 Praise the Lord, you that fear him;
stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel;
all you of Jacob’s line, give glory.
23 For he does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty;
neither does he hide his face from them; *
but when they cry to him he hears them.
24 My praise is of him in the great assembly; *
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.
25 The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
and those who seek the Lord shall praise him: *
“May your heart live for ever!”
26 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, *
and all the families of the nations shall bow before him.
27 For kingship belongs to the Lord; *
he rules over the nations.
28 To him alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship; *
all who go down to the dust fall before him.
29 My soul shall live for him;
my descendants shall serve him; *
they shall be known as the Lord’s for ever.
30 They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn *
the saving deeds that he has done.
[Lectionary Translation]
THE CRY OF THE POOR IN SPIRIT
Psalm 22 is best known to Christians from the echo of its first verse in the cry of Jesus from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The entire psalm seems to alternate between abject desperation and profound trust. “I cry by day, but you do not answer” (vs. 2), then “our ancestors trusted in you, and you delivered them” (vs. 4), and then “like water, I am poured out… my heart is like wax.” Even by the standards of a poetic medium like the psalms, these verses are heart-rending in their emotional appeal to the fragility of human experience.
In verses 22-30 the focus shifts from the very personal to the wider community, and especially to those in the greatest need. When we are seeking cries for social justice in the Hebrew Scriptures, we turn first to the prophets. Who can forget the shocking condemnation of the Prophet Amos, railing against “the cows of Bashan, who oppress the poor and crush the needy?” Human rights advocates through the centuries have quoted Israel’s prophets to back up their demands for equality for all. We don’t think of the Psalms in this context, since, in antiquity as today, liturgical prayers are not usually focused on the human struggle for justice. But here, in Psalm 22, we find a remarkable link between the divine covenant with Israel and the moral well-being of the afflicted.
Verse 23 in the lectionary translation above (it’s verse 25 in the Hebrew text) has been called by biblical scholar Beth Turner “the most powerful verse in the whole psalm.” Here we are assured that “the poor” are not despised, not abandoned, not forsaken by their divine sustainer.
For readers of the Gospels, this verse has a particularly rich resonance. Jesus uses this same term - “the poor” - to describe anyone among his listeners who knows the pain of shame, hurt and abandonment. This is not just a literal poverty, but “poverty of spirit.” And the cure for this basic human condition is not found in money, but in comfort. That is what the hopeless are waiting for, and that is what is always in our power to give. We can read the Hebrew as describing the impossible joy of that moment, when the prayer of the poor is answered:
Our Comfort’s now Becoming! -
never despising the despicable,
or abandoning us when we are all alone;
never hiding mercy’s face,
but hearing us so deeply when we cry.
Henry Ralph Carse February 28, 2021
[Rendered from the Hebrew of Psalm 22:25 by Henry Ralph Carse]